Ghost Town
by mayat09
Summary: Based on the movie Ghost Town. Dare dies in a car accident and walks the earth as a ghost, incapable of speaking or affecting anyone but others like her. Caught in limbo, she watches as secrets unfold. ON HIATUS


Dare walked around the block. She took a right on Elm Street, a right on Grapevine Street, a right on Oak Avenue, and she ended up on Iris Lane where she always stopped and stared up at the house that used to be her own. She supposed it still was her own, but she hadn't set foot in it since the morning of the day she'd died.

More old people could see you than young, Dare found after her 25th day of being dead. She supposed it had something to do with being wise, but she didn't care much. No one that old could possibly help her with her troubles. The first time she approached an old woman who was living, she'd been asked to carry groceries; this was something Dare would have happily agreed to had it been possible.

Sometimes when a person dies, they go to heaven. Other times, they go to hell. Even less likely, they stay exactly where they were before; in this case, New York City, New York.

Today was Dare's 26th day being dead. She made her 26th circle around the block where she ran into the same people she did every day. She found herself not feeling tired for the 26th time and couldn't help but wonder for the 26th time if she would end up going to heaven or hell, or worse… stay on earth forever.

Earth wasn't a bad place, it just got lonely when the only people you could talk to are other people with unfinished business. Most of those people at least knew what their unfinished business was. Dare had to walk that block everyday, feeling as though she were bound to something, feeling as though she might find the answer.

It never came.

The last thing Dare remembered about 26 days previously was driving. Obviously, that's how she died. She'd always imagined herself dying some other, peaceful way, like falling asleep and never waking up: like _The Notebook_. Only without a husband.

It had been raining (isn't it always raining?) as she drove home from the veterinary clinic where she worked. She knew the streets of New York like the back of her hand and oftentimes let her mind wander. Someone had been drunk, but who isn't drunk in the proverbial "Alphabet City"? A head-on collision must've finished her off pretty nicely. Luckily she'd been wearing a comfy pair of jeans and a decent blouse. She couldn't imagine strutting around naked like Hank did all the time.

Dare sighed and stared up at the sky. It must've been winter, but she couldn't tell. She couldn't see her breath because she had none and the air didn't warm or chill her. She could never feel again, she could never taste again. She was glad she could still see and hear. But touch was something she missed greatly.

She could talk, too, but only to someone who has died with unfinished business, or whose heart has stopped (and therefore has been technically dead) for a minute. Her favorite unbusies (which is what they called themselves, those with unfinished business) were Hank and Robert. Hank had a stroke in bed. He blamed himself for his awful habit of sleeping with no clothes and it did start out as an awkward relationship between the Dare and him, but Hank was sweet and a good listener.

Robert was just as friendly and a definite father to Dare (she'd never had her own). His wife, Sabrina, and his son, Mark, were both beautiful people as he had often pointed them out to Dare. Her heart went out to Robert; his son was falling behind drastically in school and in his social life, too. Robert claimed it was because of a little stuffed squirrel which was lost under the seat of Sabrina's car; this stuffed animal seemed to be Mark's father in symbolism. Mark had lost it the day Robert died in a mugging and Robert was sure it was all Mark needed to realize his father would always be there for him.

Hank's mother blamed herself for his death because she believed she gave him too much of the same medicine before bed, when Hank knew the facts; the one pill Hank's mother thought Hank had taken was underneath the toaster oven and his stroke had simply been part of his illness.

So they were all there. If Dare had to make a guess, there were probably about 50 unbusies in New York City alone. Dare was pretty sure about most of the guidelines about being an unbusy. For one, you wore what you died in. Second, you can't leave the area you died. Dare wasn't actually too sure about this as she had never had the urge or need to leave and she assumed that also was part of rules. Thirdly, only people who have died with unfinished business or who have had a death experience can see or hear an unbusy. Fourth, unbusies can't move, touch, taste, or take anything or anyone. Fifth, and perhaps most amusing off all the rules, if an unbusy walks through a person who is alive, the person who is alive, sneezes.

Just like the old folktale. Dare remembered finding a little enjoyment in walking through a mass of people just watching them sneeze, but soon even that got old. Now she neither purposely walked through someone alive nor avoided them; she simply walked on, not caring one way or another.

"Most annoying of all is finding out why in God's name you were put back on Earth when, clearly, you could be somewhere else," Robert had once said. "It took me the good part of a month. But some lucky people know right away. Take Hank for example; he knew exactly why he's here. Poor kid though."

"He's 26," I reminded Robert. "Not exactly a kid."

"Yeah, but he still lived with his mother," Robert said with a grin.

And it turned out that most of the unbusies were older. Dare could name the youngest unbusy and she was 18. Dare was 25 and could've been pretty damn happy had it not been for her carelessness.

She'd had a beautiful home which she shared with her beloved collie, Pookah. And she had a great-paying job in her favorite line of work. She had a wonderful mother who lived in New Jersey. But most endearing was Dare's boyfriend, Brendon, who she had been madly in love with since the day he'd made fun of her in the fifth grade. Dare couldn't have imagined a better person in her life than Brendon Boyd Urie, and now he wasn't in it anymore.

Her mother was taking care of Pookah in New Jersey and Brendon, to Dare's great surprise, was starting to stay in Dare's house, just on the outskirts of New York City. She wondered constantly why he was doing such a thing. When someone dies, where does his or her house go? Dare hadn't really thought through these things as she was so young and couldn't imagine it'd be inherited unless she willed it so, which she most certainly did not.

Brendon worked as a professional photographer and owned his own shop three blocks away from Broadway. He was pretty well off, but nowhere near able to own his condo in the city _and_ Dare's house.

Dare found herself unable to go inside her own house. It wasn't a physical challenge to go in, as nothing was physical anymore, but her mind willed her not to go in and she saw no point in fighting against it.

She watched Brendon through the window, though. And she saw him cry often. Was that why she was an unbusy? To help ease her own death from Brendon? That didn't seem right to Dare, though. Everyone had coping problems after a death. If every dead person came back whose relative was depressed, there'd be no room left in New York City. The city would be one giant sneeze, probably.

After Dare took her regular route around the block, she decided to lobby off and join Robert at his usual park bench in Central Park. Dare was glad she able to leave her suburban town to go to New York City, but found that the walk, which would normally take five minutes to drive, took very little time at all. Perhaps that was another rule Dare had yet to figure out the specifics for.

It was dark out, and the sky was full of an empty blackness due to light pollution. Dare wished so often that she could see the stars, and sometimes even wanted it more than anything because that was one thing she loved about the country when she was alive.

As a little girl, Dare had lived on a farm in Pennsylvania. Her father had rarely been there and Dare remembered very little about him. Her mother was strong and with Dare and her older brother, David, they could own a two-horse farm with some chickens and a dairy cow.

Dare loved it. She missed the sights and smells of the country. But she missed the stars most of all. She really wanted to see the stars again.


End file.
